Political scientist and media critic

November 30, 2012

New at CJR: The future of fact-checking after 2012

My new column at CJR considers the future of the fact-checking movement after the 2012 campaign. Here's how it begins:

As journalists close the books on 2012 and look forward to coverage of a second Obama administration, one important question is where the factchecking movement goes from here.

The general election campaign was unquestionably the most intensively factchecked in history. While factchecking did not eliminate falsehoods from our politics, this was always an unrealistic expectation. The relevant question is whether politicians were more careful, and voters better informed, than they would have been without factchecking. By that standard, the expansion of factchecking seems likely to have had a positive effect.

Given these successes, many observers hope the media will continue to increase the resources and attention given to factchecking in the future. In an interview with New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, for instance, NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen suggested CNN should “declare jihad on the talking points” and prominently feature “on-air fact-checking”...

Any further expansion of factchecking—whether as the new brand of a cable news network or in other print or broadcast outlets—faces significant challenges, however.